Pascal's Pensées
dominandi._"[172] Wretched is the cursed land which these three rivers
of fire enflame rather than water![173] Happy they who, on these rivers,
are not overwhelmed nor carried away, but are immovably fixed, not
standing but seated on a low and secure base, whence they do not rise
before the light, but, having rested in peace, stretch out their hands
to Him, who must lift them up, and make them stand upright and firm in
the porches of the holy Jerusalem! There pride can no longer assail them
nor cast them down; and yet they weep, not to see all those perishable
things swept away by the torrents, but at the remembrance of their loved
country, the heavenly Jerusalem, which they remember without ceasing
during their prolonged exile.
459
The rivers of Babylon rush and fall and sweep away.
O holy Sion, where all is firm and nothing falls!
We must sit upon the waters, not under them or in them, but on them; and
not standing but seated; being seated to be humble, and being above them
to be secure. But we shall stand in the porches of Jerusalem.
Let us see if this pleasure is stable or transitory; if it pass away, it
is a river of Babylon.
460
_The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, pride, etc._--There are
three orders of things: the flesh, the spirit, and the will. The carnal
are the rich and kings; they have the body as their object. Inquirers
and scientists; they have the mind as their object. The wise; they have
righteousness as their object.
God must reign over all, and all men must be brought back to Him. In
things of the flesh lust reigns specially; in intellectual matters,
inquiry specially; in wisdom, pride specially. Not that a man cannot
boast of wealth or knowledge, but it is not the place for pride; for in
granting to a man that he is learned, it is easy to convince him that he
is wrong to be proud. The proper place for pride is in wisdom, for it
cannot be granted to a man that he has made himself wise, and that he is
wrong to be proud; for that is right. Now God alone gives wisdom, and
that is why _Qui gloriatur, in Domino glorietur_.[174]
461
The three lusts have made three sects; and the philosophers have done no
other thing than follow one of the three lusts.
462
_Search for the true good._--Ordinary men place the good in fortune and
external goods, or at least in amusement. Philosophers have shown the
vanity of all this, and have placed it where they could.
463
[_Against the philosophers who believe in God without Jesus Christ_]
_Philosophers._--They believe that God alone is worthy to be loved and
admired; and they have desired to be loved and admired of men, and do
not know their own corruption. If they feel full of feelings of love and
admiration, and find therein their chief delight, very well, let them
think themselves good. But if they find themselves averse to Him, if
they have no inclination but the desire to establish themselves in the
esteem of men, and if their whole perfection consists only in making
men--but without constraint--find their happiness in loving them, I
declare that this perfection is horrible. What! they have known God, and
have not desired solely that men should love Him, but that men should
stop short at them! They have wanted to be the object of the voluntary
delight of men.
464
_Philosophers._--We are full of things which take us out of ourselves.
Our instinct makes us feel that we must seek our happiness outside
ourselves. Our passions impel us outside, even when no objects present
themselves to excite them. External objects tempt us of themselves, and
call to us, even when we are not thinking of them. And thus philosophers
have said in vain, "Retire within yourselves, you will find your good
there." We do not believe them, and those who believe them are the most
empty and the most foolish.
465
The Stoics say, "Retire within yourselves; it is there you will find
your rest." And that is not true.
Others say, "Go out of yourselves; seek happiness in amusement." And
this is not true. Illness comes.
Happiness is neither without us nor within us. It is in God, both
without us and within us.
466
Had Epictetus seen the way perfectly, he would have said to men, "You
follow a wrong road"; he shows that there is another, but he does not
lead to it. It is the way of willing what God wills. Jesus Christ alone
leads to it: _Via, veritas._[175]
The vices of Zeno[176] himself.
467
_The reason of effects._--Epictetus.[177] Those who say, "You have a
headache;" this is not the same thing. We are assured of health, and not
of justice; and in fact his own was nonsense.
And yet he believed it demonstrable, when he said, "It is either in our
power or it is not." But he did not perceive that it is not in our power
to regulate the heart, and he was wrong to infer this from the fact that
there were some Christians.
468
No other religion has proposed to men to hate themselves. No other
religion then can please those who hate themselves, and who seek a Being
truly lovable. And these, if they had never heard of the religion of a
God humiliated, would embrace it at once.
469
I feel that I might not have been; for the Ego consists in my thoughts.
Therefore I, who think, would not have been, if my mother had been
killed before I had life. I am not then a necessary being. In the same
way I am not eternal or infinite; but I see plainly that there exists in
nature a necessary Being, eternal and infinite.
470
"Had I seen a miracle," say men, "I should become converted." How can
they be sure they would do a thing of the nature of which they are
ignorant? They imagine that this conversion consists in a worship of God
which is like commerce, and in a communion such as they picture to
themselves. True religion consists in annihilating self before that
Universal Being, whom we have so often provoked, and who can justly
destroy us at any time; in recognising that we can do nothing without
Him, and have deserved nothing from Him but His displeasure. It consists
in knowing that there is an unconquerable opposition between us and God,
and that without a mediator there can be no communion with Him.
471
It is unjust that men should attach themselves to me, even though they
do it with pleasure and voluntarily. I should deceive those in whom I
had created this desire; for I am not the end of any, and I have not the
wherewithal to satisfy them. Am I not about to die? And thus the object
of their attachment will die. Therefore, as I would be blamable in
causing a falsehood to be believed, though I should employ gentle
persuasion, though it should be believed with pleasure, and though it
should give me pleasure; even so I am blamable in making myself loved,
and if I attract persons to attach themselves to me. I ought to warn
those who are ready to consent to a lie, that they ought not to believe
it, whatever advantage comes to me from it; and likewise that they ought
not to attach themselves to me; for they ought to spend their life and
their care in pleasing God, or in seeking Him.
472
Self-will will never be satisfied, though it should have command of all
it would; but we are satisfied from the moment we renounce it. Without
it we cannot be discontented; with it we cannot be content.
473
Let us imagine a body full of thinking members.[178]
474
_Members, To commence with that._--To regulate the love which we owe to
ourselves, we must imagine a body full of thinking members, for we are
members of the whole, and must see how each member should love itself,
etc....
475
If the feet and the hands had a will of their own, they could only be in
their order in submitting this particular will to the primary will which
governs the whole body. Apart from that, they are in disorder and
mischief; but in willing only the good of the body, they accomplish
their own good.
476
We must love God only and hate self only.
If the foot had always been ignorant that it belonged to the body, and
that there was a body on which it depended, if it had only had the
knowledge and the love of self, and if it came to know that it belonged
to a body on which it depended, what regret, what shame for its past
life, for having been useless to the body which inspired its life, which
would have annihilated it if it had rejected it and separated it from
itself, as it kept itself apart from the body! What prayers for its
preservation in it! And with what submission would it allow itself to be
governed by the will which rules the body, even to consenting, if
necessary, to be cut off, or it would lose its character as member! For
every member must be quite willing to perish for the body, for which
alone the whole is.
477
It is false that we are worthy of the love of others; it is unfair that
we should desire it. If we were born reasonable and impartial, knowing
ourselves and others, we should not give this bias to our will. However,
we are born with it; therefore born unjust, for all tends to self. This
is contrary to all order. We must consider the general good; and the
propensity to self is the beginning of all disorder, in war, in
politics, in economy, and in the particular body of man. The will is
therefore depraved.
If the members of natural and civil communities tend towards the weal of
the body, the communities themselves ought to look to another more
general body of which they are members. We ought therefore to look to
the whole. We are therefore born unjust and depraved.
478
When we want to think of God, is there nothing which turns us away, and
tempts us to think of something else? All this is bad, and is born in
us.
479
If there is a God, we must love Him only, and not the creatures of a
day. The reasoning of the ungodly in the book of Wisdom[179] is only
based upon the non-existence of God. "On that supposition," say they,
"let us take delight in the creatures." That is the worst that can
happen. But if there were a God to love, they would not have come to
this conclusion, but to quite the contrary. And this is the conclusion
of the wise: "There is a God, let us therefore not take delight in the
creatures."
Therefore all that incites us to attach ourselves to the creatures is
bad; since it prevents us from serving God if we know Him, or from
seeking Him if we know Him not. Now we are full of lust. Therefore we
are full of evil; therefore we ought to hate ourselves and all that
excited us to attach ourselves to any other object than God only.
480
To make the members happy, they must have one will, and submit it to the
body.
481
The examples of the noble deaths of the Lacedæmonians and others scarce
touch us. For what good is it to us? But the example of the death of the
martyrs touches us; for they are "our members." We have a common tie
with them. Their resolution can form ours, not only by example, but
because it has perhaps deserved ours. There is nothing of this in the
examples of the heathen. We have no tie with them; as we do not become
rich by seeing a stranger who is so, but in fact by seeing a father or a
husband who is so.
482
_Morality._--God having made the heavens and the earth, which do not
feel the happiness of their being, He has willed to make beings who
should know it, and who should compose a body of thinking members. For
our members do not feel the happiness of their union, of their
wonderful intelligence, of the care which has been taken to infuse into
them minds, and to make them grow and endure. How happy they would be if
they saw and felt it! But for this they would need to have intelligence
to know it, and good-will to consent to that of the universal soul. But